


facsimiles

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Dinner, Established Relationship, Fluff, Food, Kissing, M/M, Post-Pacifist Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 19:29:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17147753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: “Welcome to human suffering, Connor. The turkey is always dry.”





	facsimiles

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the cute as hell [holiday prompt thing](https://detroitbecomehuman.dreamwidth.org/5644.html) going on over at the DBH DW comm.

Connor stared at the small, wafer-thin square Hank was currently holding out to him and was more than a little suspicious of it if truth be told. He’d seen all sorts of new products come out that were marketed to androids and he didn’t want any part of them. He hadn’t needed anything except his suit before, maybe a bottle of thirium, a new biocomponent when an old one got worn out or he busted one on the job. Those were essentials. They were important. This was a frivolity at best and a dubious one at that.

“You do know it wouldn’t be like eating real food, don’t you, Hank?” he asked. To be honest, he’d never had any interest in giving human food or drink a try. There were some androids who were intrigued by the possibilities, the camaraderie they witnessed between humans around a table in the media or in a restaurant or even in the homes they’d once served in that maybe, if they were lucky, were now family homes to them.

It was understandable and Connor wouldn’t begrudge anyone that need for connection. Goodness knew there were all sorts of weird things he liked to do in order to feel like he was part of something bigger than himself. But that didn’t mean he wanted to fry his own synapses in a human-specific way in order to simulate the taste of—what was it, he had to scan it to be sure—roast turkey and mashed potatoes.

Connor didn’t wrinkle his nose, but it was only because he had superior control of his facial muscles. Otherwise, he might not have managed it.

“What is this about?” Connor asked. “Really?” Because though some humans got uncomfortable when the androids in their lives didn’t share meals with them, Hank had never been one of them, though occasionally he mourned the fact that he would never get to see Connor drunk off his ass in order to make up for the times he’d found Hank in that state and used it against him in not-so-clever and diabolical ways. Sure, speaking at a higher volume than necessary was maybe the lowest hanging fruit Connor could have plucked on a semi-regular basis from the tree of obnoxious, petty revenges, but it was easy and, more importantly, effective. And Connor was grateful that Hank couldn’t turn it against him in turn.

Perhaps he should have guessed what the problem was from context, but Connor rarely noticed the calendar and what it meant beyond “is he going to have to roll Hank out of bed to get him to work” or “can he leave the man alone until he woke himself up.” He used to pay closer attention, it was true, but the details grew less and less important the longer he spent around people. So long as he knew the date and how it related to his cases, it was fine.

“Nothin’,” Hank replied, surly, which just made Connor more intrigued. Surly meant Hank was hiding something that mattered to him, something that Connor should have guessed on his own—at least according to Hank. This could easily turn into a full-blown fight if Connor let it, but since he _was_ intrigued, he decided against poking Hank beyond what he’d already done. Instead, he noted that it was close to Christmas, which was a usual time of the year to enjoy both turkey and mashed potatoes, though not exclusively. A lot of people came up with a lot of excuses to combine the two foods and pretended there was a holiday attached to it.

Connor hadn’t taken Hank for a sentimental man, not about holidays, but it was the right time of year. Though they’d been together a while now, had shared at least three Christmases together, Hank had never brought something like this up before. Hadn’t even asked him his opinion or expressed any sort of weirdnesses regarding it. In fact, during at least two of those years, Hank didn’t celebrate Christmas in the slightest, not in public, not in private, not anywhere or for anyone. He’d pick up some takeout maybe and then they’d sit around working on cases or watching a movie with Sumo stretched across their feet or lounging in bed.

Connor didn’t see anything wrong with any of those things.

“If you don’t want it, that’s fine,” Hank was saying since Connor wasn’t offering a good reply. “It just seemed like an idea is all.”

“Do you—?” Connor stopped himself and swallowed and found himself terribly endeared despite himself. “Do you want to have dinner with me? Is that what this is?” When Hank tried to take the thing and tuck it away in his pocket, Connor stopped him, pulled it from his lax grip and held onto it himself. The edges of its plastic wrapping dug into Connor’s palm. A blinking green light inside indicated it was fully charged and the packaging indicated it was good for thirty minutes.

It was such a strange little contraption. Connor tried to imagine how anyone would find it satisfying. But even so, fondness bubbled up inside of him. Hank wasn’t the sentimental sort, rarely expressed more than the gruffest of emotions and even then he had to push himself to do it. The way he scuffed his shoes and wouldn’t look at Connor, a frown on his mouth, was answer enough, so he didn’t push for more.

If he didn’t know better, he might have been offended, but Connor knew what Hank sounded like and did when he was dissatisfied. If he was unhappy with Connor, he wouldn’t be here. So he easily pushed aside the implication that Hank wanted something from him that he just couldn’t give: human experience.

“You wanted me to have dinner with you,” Connor revised. There was only a small, subtle difference, but it was a difference. And it probably made all the difference in the world to Hank’s way of thinking about it. In any case, it was terribly sweet. And even if Hank wouldn’t have appreciated hearing about it being cute, Connor could think that way about it all he wanted.

“All these other androids are talking about this shit like it’s the second coming of novel experiences,” Hank explained. His cheeks were a little bit pinker than before and his voice had a rougher edge to it. Connor wasn’t the sort to rub Hank’s face in it, so he let it slide. He didn’t want Hank to become self-conscious, not when it was so difficult to convince him to open up to Connor as it was.

“It would be a novel experience,” Connor said, agreeable. And most androids liked nothing so much as they liked that. Even Connor couldn’t deny it. Looked at in that light, Connor couldn’t say he wasn’t intrigued. The plastic crinkled in his palm as he turned it over and read the label again. Bright and colorful, it did a good job of convincing a person it was something fun, special even. “Okay, Hank.” He held it up and wiggled it back and forth between his fingers. “You name the time and place.”

When the moment came, Connor wasn’t entirely sure where Hank got his own real turkey, too big for even him to eat unless he tried very, very hard and was at it for a couple of days, and mashed potatoes. Or even when he had time to get it. But he’d left Hank alone for a few hours to visit Markus and North in New Jericho and came back to this.

Christmas dinner. Traditional Christmas dinner. Even he could recognize it despite Hank’s allergy to Christmas in most respects. “So I only get the turkey, huh?” Connor asked, teasing, as he looked over the conspicuous display of food before him. There was no way he was going to be able to consume it all, but from the way he was proudly surveying his domain, he was going to try.

 _Good luck_ , Connor thought, _with that_.

But Hank rolled his eyes and fished in his pocket, withdrew at least five more of the wafers and dropped them onto the table. “Who do you think I am?” Hank asked. “I don’t do anything half-assed, I’ll have you know.”

Now, Connor could have argued this point and he would have won. Hank did a lot of things half-assed, starting with getting out of bed in the morning and ending with him flopping onto the couch at the end of the day, but in the spirit of Christmas, he refrained. Hank seemed to know it, too, staring at Connor as though daring to say something. At least he was thorough on the job. When it came to actually solving cases anyway.

So, yeah. Connor gave him the freebie.

Connor picked up the array of wafers and rifled through them. Green bean casserole and rolls. Cranberry sauce and macaroni and cheese. Eggnog even. This couldn’t have been cheap and Connor would have just as soon had him spend the money on something for himself, but it was touching anyway. Everything he’d picked up matched something on the table. He must have ordered at least some of this in. There was no way he could’ve had the time to do this otherwise.

“Okay, Hank,” Connor said, taking the seat across from Hank’s side of the table. Sumo poked his head up from the corner of the kitchen floor, alerted to the presence of food by the scraping of the chair against the linoleum. Connor could only guess that Sumo had already given up trying to get any scraps otherwise. Hank could be cruelly exacting when he wanted to be. It wasn’t so difficult for Connor to imagine Hank shooing Sumo away while he waited for Connor to come back.

Connor retrieved the wafer Hank had already given him and began carefully pulling them from the plastic they’d come in. Trying not to look at them with suspicion and trepidation, he waited for Hank to retrieve a plate and take his own seat. While he waited, he bent over and clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth and snapped his fingers. “Sumo,” he said, quiet, though he was perfectly aware that Hank could still hear him.

Hank didn’t yell when he pinched a bit of turkey from the large serving dish in the very center of the table.

Sumo padded over and dropped again at Connor’s feet, falling on the turkey as though he was a starved and neglected street animal. Smiling, Connor grabbed a bigger piece and fed it to Sumo directly. His slobber got all over Connor’s palm, but that was okay.

“Ugh,” Hank said, catching him because he always caught him. “You’re disgusting.”

Connor rolled his eyes. “Just hand me a disinfecting wipe,” he said, fonder than Hank deserved. Sure, humans had better reason to care about germs than androids did, but he wasn’t entirely uncouth. It wasn’t like he was intending to touch everything on the table before he’d had a chance to clean up. “You baby.”

“Damn right” Hank agreed, tossing one at Connor’s head. Connor caught it anyway, much to Hank’s frowning displeasure. “I know where that mouth’s been.”

Sumo whuffed happily as Connor scritched him behind the ear. “But at least your mouth is full of incompatible bacteria, isn’t that right, Sumo? You’re not a danger to anybody.” Connor looked pointedly at Hank and swiped the cloth over his hands. “You do realize, of course, that I also know where your mouth’s been. You don’t see me complaining.”

Hank wrinkled his nose and scowled. But even if he looked angry, Connor knew the truth, could tell it from the sparkle in Hank’s eyes and the wayhe couldn’t quite look Connor in the eye. He was having fun. “This isn’t really what I had in mind when I thought we could sit down and have a nice holiday dinner together.”

“I’m not sure what else you expected given historical trends.” Which was to say, their conversations tended toward the ridiculous on a long enough timescale. Connor would have blamed Hank for it if he didn’t know for a fact that he started a full fifty-three percent of those conversational shifts. Not that he’d ever admit as much to Hank, no. Then he’d never hear the end of it and it might not work anymore.

And that would be unfortunate. Half the joy Connor derived in life came from winding Hank up.

He plucked another thin slice of turkey from the table and tossed it at Sumo. He was pretty spry for his age and size, caught it easily and barked.

Hank, try as he might, could not argue. And Connor could tell he wanted to. His mouth opened and closed again, but apparently he had nothing to say, no good answer for Connor. Instead, he focused on dishing up his own plate. “Just—eat your wafers. Or lick them. Or do whatever it is you’re supposed to do with them.”

“I hope you’re happy, Hank,” Connor said. The truth was he already knew Hank was happy and that was good enough for Connor, even if he was going to have to—ah, yes. Lick them. He supposed it served him right. Hank couldn’t have planned that better if he tried, though Connor was fairly sure he didn’t. It would’ve been a lot of work for one thing. For another, he didn’t particularly care for Connor’s method of testing blood and other materials. It made him wonder why CyberLife saddled him with those bits of hardware and software. Just about any other way of doing it might have been more appealing to the people Connor was supposed to work with.

He picked up one of the wafers—the turkey one—and touched it against his tongue. There was a slight fuzzy tang at first before a burst of sensations he couldn’t explain flooded across his tongue. There was even a weight to it, like if he brought his teeth together, he’d genuinely be chewing something.

“It tastes…” Connor frowned, thoughtful, and tried to figure out what he was tasting. It wasn’t unpleasant exactly, but it was weird and trying to put words to it was troubling to him. Maybe he could see why other androids enjoyed it, but he didn’t think he’d be making this part of his regular daily routine. It was bad enough when he had to swallow thirium. Maybe it was because he automatically equated tasting things with analyzing them. It was difficult not to try to figure out the provenance of what he was consuming now. But since it was just electrical impulses—or, rather, the algorithmic equivalent of it—there wasn’t much there. “…dry?”

Hank said nothing for a moment, eyes wide, before he let out a loud, joyous guffaw. Once he got himself under control, bringing a napkin to his mouth as he cleared his throat, he said, “Welcome to human suffering, Connor. The turkey is always dry.”

Narrowing his eyes, Connor picked up another one of the wafers. The eggnog one.

Eyes crinkling, Hank reached across the table and wrapped his hand around Connor’s. That was definitely worth the cost of trying these silly things just because Hank asked him to. “Maybe you won’t like that one. Or any of the others. In fact, maybe you shouldn’t have any of them.”

“No, it’s fine.” Connor glanced down at the things. Even if he wouldn’t have sought this out for himself, he could see the appeal. And there was no lying to himself: it made something warm and sly flutter in his chest that Hank wanted to share this with him. “It’s interesting. It’s a good experience. And I can appreciate sharing it with you. Thank you, Hank.” Then he tried the eggnog one and said, “Please tell me you don’t like this one.”

“Eh.” Hank shrugged and looked away. “Usually there’s some bourbon in it to cut the flavor some. It’s kind of an acquired taste, I guess, but it’s traditional.”

Which meant Hank did like eggnog, even if there was no bourbon. Connor would have to remember that. He might not be able to drink it, thank goodness, but he could certainly buy some for Hank to drink in his stead.

In the meantime, Connor could do Hank one better. Standing, he leaned across the table and grabbed hold of Hank’s shirt by the collar and brought their mouths together in a kiss. This, Connor thought, was a much better use for his own tongue. And Hank seemed to agree, reaching up to wrap his palm around the back of Connor’s neck. Though Connor would have happily forgotten all about the food in favor of making out, he decided that wasn’t fair to Hank, who’d gone through so much trouble for it.

“Merry Christmas, Hank,” Connor said against Hank’s mouth, happy to feel the upward turn of Hank’s lips as he spoke. “This has been most enlightening.”

Hank, running his hand through Connor’s hair, replied, “Leave it to you, Connor,” and, “Merry Christmas.”

It made for a nice day even if Connor didn’t appreciate food anymore than he did before.

Connor decided there was nothing at all wrong with that.

And Hank didn’t seem to mind either.


End file.
